Chapter I: Part 1

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THE ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL

* * * * *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTERY.

“We have the greatest pleasure in recommending the elegant and
laborious work of Mr. Dendy.”—TIMES.

“Drawn with fancy and elegance.”—ATHENÆUM.

PSYCHE:

A Discourse on the Birth and Pilgrimage of Thought.

THE
BEAUTIFUL ISLETS OF BRITAINE.

Illustrated by 45 Woodcuts.

“We are delighted to join Mr. Dendy in his trip.”—ATHENÆUM.

* * * * *

THE ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL.

by

WALTER COOPER DENDY,

Past President of the Medical Society of London; Consulting Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary for Children and Women, Author of “The Philosophy of Mystery,” “The Beautiful Islets of Britaine,” “Psyche,” etc.

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”—ENDYMION.

Described and Illustrated from Sketches on the spot by the Author.

London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts. 1858.

London: Savill and Edwards, Printers, Chandos Street.

ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL.

From Southampton (Mail), Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 11 P.M.

Fare from London, 1_l._ 11_s._ and 1_l._ 1_s._

" " Southampton, 1_l._ 1_s._ and 14_s._

From the Islets on same days, at 8 A.M.

Other Boats, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Return from the Islets, hour uncertain.

Fare from London, 1_l._ 5_s._ 6_d._, 17_s._, and 11_s._ 6_d._ Steward, 2_s._ and 1_s._

" " Southampton, 16_s._ and 11_s._

Half-fare for children from two to twelve.

Return tickets, 1 Month, 45_s._ and 35_s._

From Weymouth, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 8 A.M.

Return Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at 7 A.M.

Other Boats, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at half-past 8 A.M.

Return Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, at half-past 7 A.M.

Fare from London, 1_l._ 11_s._ and 1_l._ 1_s._

Boat from Jersey to St. Malo’s, in 3 to 5 hours, Tuesday about noon.

Boat to Granville on Saturday.

Excursions from Jersey to Sark and Alderney and round the Islet.

* * * * *

In Guernsey, chiefly French money: Jersey, chiefly British. Chief circulation in Island one-pound notes. 12 British shillings equal to 13 Jersey.

* * * * *

Hotels of all grades. Lodgings in town-houses and garden-villas. Poultry and Fish cheap, especially in Guernsey. Tobacco and Tea moderate. Milk plentiful, even in many cottages.

Wine, per doz.:—Port, 18_s._ to 40_s._ Sherry, 18_s._ to 36_s._ Madeira, 50_s._ Marsala, 15_s._ Claret, 16_s._ to 75_s._ Burgundy, 30_s._ to _55s._ Champagne, 30_s._ to 60_s._ Mountain, 20_s._ Hock and Moselle, 35_s._ to 55_s._ Muscat, 25_s._ Chablis and Barsac, 20_s._ Sauterne, 12_s._ to 15_s._ Grave, 18_s._ Champagne Brandy, 49_s._

Horses, 6_s._ or 7_s._ a-day. One-horse carriage, 8_s._ Two-horse carriage, 12_s._ to 15_s._

Table of Contents

1. Alderney.
2. Guernsey.
3. Sark.
4. Jersey.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

ALDERNEY MAP
LA PENDENTE, ALDERNEY
ALDERNEY FROM BERHOU
GUERNSEY MAP
LE FORÊT, GUERNSEY
MUEL HUET
SERK MAP
LE CREUX HAVEN, SERK
LES AUTELETS
LA COUPÉ
POINT VIGNETTE
JERSEY MAP
ELIZABETH CASTLE, JERSEY
ST. BRELADE’S BAY
ST. BRELADE’S CHURCH
CLIFFS NEAR GRÈVE LA LECQ
GUERNSEY AND SERK, FROM JERSEY
CROMLECH
MOUNT ORGUEIL CASTLE
LA TOUR D’AUVERGNE

THE
ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL.

* * * * *

IT was in the tenth century that the French King, Charles IV., granted to Rollo the Pirate, who had married his daughter, the Dukedom of Normandy, together with the islets of “the wide bay of St. Michael’s;” a guerdon for his conversion to Christianity. When William, the descendant of Rollo, won the field of Hastings, the islets became an appanage of Britain, by the right of _being conquered_, and so they remain to this day politically subject to Britain, although geographically a parcel of France. The discovery of Roman, Celtic, Runic, and Gallic relics and coins, and the ruins of temple and fortress throughout the islets, reflect their history on the olden time. Jersey, it seems, was the isolated retreat of Ambiorix, a rebel to Julius Cæsar, if we rightly interpret the sixth book of the “Commentaries.” These Norman rocks, however, have not been held unchallenged. The French descents date from Henry I., through the reigns of John—who established the “Royal Courts,” on a visit to the isles—of Edward I., Edward III., Henry VII., Edward VI., George II., and George III., but they were all failures, although Du Guesclin, who was commissioned by Charles the Wise, seized and held Mount Orgueil Castle. In the dilemma of “the Roses,” the Norman Pierre de Breze assumed the title of “Lord of the Isles” until the blending of these royal emblems. The last attempt was on Jersey, in 1779-80, by the Duke of Nassau, when Pierson fell in its successful defence.

During the joyous months of summer and autumn, this fair group of islets will become more and more attractive as the facility of communication increases, especially as they possess the elements both of the salubrious and the beautiful in a very high degree. Soft and health-breathing gales are wafted along their very lovely and bloom-spangled valleys; they are belted by magnificent cliffs, indented by sheltered coves and deep and darksome caverns, and by outlying rocks of the most fantastic forms, and they are enriched, moreover, by quaint and antique structures, emblazoned in remote history and romantic legend.

There is a charm, also, in feeling that they are _our own_, and that the genial atmosphere and the luscious fruits and the light wines of France may be so perfectly enjoyed without the inquisitorial annoyance of the system of Passe-porte.

There are hotels and lodging-houses adapted to the most economic purse, the direction to which may be learned on board; and the markets will supply all the delicacies an island appetite can desire. For the votaries of health and joy the islets are thus exquisitely fashioned by the bounty of the Creator, and the invalid and convalescent may with confidence adopt them as a resort, especially as the facility of sailing and boating on genial waters offers delightful recreation without the exhaustion of fatigue and the consequent evil of _reaction_.

The islets are fanned by southern breezes, yet the tidal currents in their rock-bound channels, often running seven knots in the hour, foam over the breakers in very wild magnificence. The floods of the _Race_ of Alderney, _Les Ras de Blansharde_, between that islet and Cape la Hogue, and even those of the _Swinge_ between the islet and the porphyritic rock of _Berhou_ are proverbial, and in very foul weather the boat may roll and ship heavy seas in the passage of the Ortac within the crags of the _Caskets_.

Through the _Race_ run the boats from the Thames: those from Southampton chiefly through the _Swinge_ or the _Ortac_: those from Weymouth direct in the open channel to Porte St. Pierre in Guernsey, the most rapid and _pacific_ course for the languid and the delicate.

* * * * *

The geologic _arrangement_ of the islets is in three pairs. Jersey and Guernsey are inclined planes, shelving from magnificent cliffs to a flat beach studded with rocklets; Jersey trending southward, Guernsey northward; the granite rocks of Jersey enclosing one-half, those of Guernsey one-third.

Alderney and Serque are _table-lands_, raised on bases of rock; Alderney irregularly _belted_—Serque completely _framed_. Herm and Jedthou are mounds isolated by the waves. _Satellite blocks_ and _ledges_ are lying in profusion in the channels, some overwhelmed at high water. These groups are exquisitely bold in outline and deep and rich in colour, from the incessant play of wind and wave, the pencils and the washes with which elemental _art_ is still heightening the wildness and the beauty of the creation.

The valleys and downs are prolific in bloom, and flowers of the brightest and deepest colours adorn the more cultivated parterres. In the deep, deep caverns, with which the cliff and the bays are darkened, sport in their almost sacred solitude the acephalæ and the actiniæ. In the watery bosom of the cave, the male syngnathus may nurse its infant brood in safety, and the delicate comatula unfold its feathery tentaculæ. In the hollow cups scooped in the granite and glittering with brine, the daisy actinia, that Clytie of the rocks so loving of the light, may unfold her enamoured florets to the sun. Then what profusion and what variety in form and colour of deep sea-weeds are thrown by the billows on the pebbles and the sand; a spot richer both in these cast-away treasures of the deep and in the living botany of the ocean, may not be found than the caverned bays of eccentric Serque.

ALDERNEY:

AURENÊ—AURIGMA—AURIMA—ARENO—ABRENO—AURNE—ORIGNI—AURINÆ
INSULA—ISLE OF THE CAPE—ISLAND OF ST. ANNE.

THIS lies nearest to the shore of Albion, within its belt of shoals, and difficult of access in stormy weather, even in its new haven of Braye la Ville, or Brayer. The access was still more perilous in Crab Bay, or in the more ancient port of Longy. We are landed. How quiet the people, how social and primitive, how wedded to old customs. It is probable, however, that in a few years the harbour of Braye will display a busier scene, much of the sterile land of the Giffoine be fertilized, the petty farms multiplied, and the treasures of its fisheries realized: but Alderney will never be admired, for dulness reigns around, and the sea spray seems to excite cutaneous maladies, and the salt and fish diet to induce dyspepsia. There is, however, with its sterile aspect and its dearth of foliage, a prominent and novel character in Alderney. About its elevated centre is the quaint old ville of St. Anne, possessing a new church (the ancient fane being despoiled), a new court house, the Government house, the gaol, the female school, and chapels of dissent.

Of the ancient town on the south-eastern coast, of which the oblong granite blocks of Les Rochers, near the cemetery, are believed to be the debris, very solemn legends are recorded. Its destruction is referred to the judgment of the Deity on the crimes of a gang of wreckers, who plundered and murdered the crew of a Spanish vessel wrecked on the coast. This infliction, according to the record, had its parallel in Jersey.

The _Court_ consists of judge, jurats, attorney and solicitor-general, greffier, sheriff, and his depute and serjeant.

The ecclesiastical history is not without interest, and there are seriously romantic legends of the mission of Geunal, Vignalor, or St. Vignalis, the patron saint of Aurigny. He was a scion of a noble family in Bretagne, a proselyte of St. Magloire, and he resigned his abbacy of Landenec, and became a missionary to Sark. From thence he wended to Alderney, and converted the catchers of fish and the tillers of ground, before this the most desperate _wreckers_ in the Channel.

From the outlying rocks on the eastern height stands the ruined castle (_La Chatte_) of Essex, built, it is said, by Robert Devereux, for the detention of his queen. Below it, on the lower shore of Longis is a Roman _cist_, noted by Holinshed; and _Castrum Longini_. _Les murs des bas_, or the _Nunnery_, is a very antique square, with corner towers, constructed with the Roman tiles of the dilapidated ville. Here and also at _Corbelets_ were discovered antique vessels and coins and relics, and monumental stones of porphyry and sienite.

On the coast heights there are batteries and watchtowers and beacons, and a telegraph for Guernsey, all dismantled in time of peace.

The coast is one of the wildest belts of cliffs and rocklets; those eastward of a line from _Braye_ to _L’Etat_ are of ruddy grit, those westward of porphyry or hornstone. The eastern group, more exposed to disintegrating forces, assumes the columnar form, or that of hanging blocks, as at _Pendente_; but the porphyry of the west is of the wildest fashion. Between these strata is a narrow black belt of hornblende and quartz, running north and south across the islet. On the south-west point is _La Nashe Fourchie_, the cones of _Les Rochers des Sœurs_, and the secluded _Chaise de l’Emauve_, the _Lovers Chair_, a record of the passion of Jacquine Le Mesurier for one far lower than herself in rank. Of this romance the story and catastrophe are just as interesting as the common run of these love tales. Below the ridge of the _Giffoine_ there is the bold _Tête de Jugemaine_, and the fine bays of _La Platte Saline_ and _La Clanque_. On its outlying rock is still celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, by youths and maidens, the ancient festa of Les Brandons, the wild gambols being peculiar to the islet. After dancing in the ring and kisses round, the corps de ballet return to Braye in procession, waving aloft their blazing firebrands, displaying all the wild gambols of Comus. The islet is most exposed; it is therefore _bracing_, yet the Cape _Alctris_ and other exotics thrive in the open air. About Longis and La Clanque a profusion of _fuci_ and _algæ_ is thrown on the shore. The _Haliotis_ and _Trochus shells_ lie on the beach, and myriads of the _strombiformis_ on the sterile ground.

In her course from England, whether in the open channel or in the Ortac, the boat closes on the _Caskets_. From the Weymouth course these lie off eastward. The water is twenty and thirty fathoms deep around these white sand rocks, which are about a mile in circuit, and have two landing-places, with steps in the rock, accessible in calm weather. The approach is perilous in a storm; and it was off the Caskets that in 1120 Prince William, the only son of Henry I., was drowned. The platform is walled and surrounded by three light-towers at triangular points. The sea block of _Ortac_ and the rocklet of _Berhou_ lie between the Caskets and Alderney, the latter rock being the resort of the Stormy Petrel, the Barbalot, and the burrowing bee, one of the most interesting little things in entomology. From this rock the peep at Alderney is picturesque.

We are nearing the little Russell Channel, and surrounded by blocklets: another of the sister islets is looming in the distance.

GUERNSEY:

CÆSAREA—SARNIA.

PASSING between the point of _Vale_ and Herm, we are directly off the harbour of _St. Peters Port_, its fort of _Castle Cornet_ crowning an isolated granite rock, southward of the pier, which now connects it with the shore, and forms the harbour of refuge. The coup d’œil assumes a perfect Norman aspect, and the costume, dialect, and manners are in just harmony with the scene. The marine quarter of the “town,” as it is _par excellence_ termed (and indeed there is no other in Guernsey), especially the old church, the hotels, and wineshops, of dark grey stone, with which the quay is lined, is perfectly _continental_. The shops and offices, of more modern aspect, compose the streets; the dwellings of the opulent, among which _Castle Carey_ is conspicuous, are chiefly on terraces along the abrupt escarpment; _Elizabeth College_, the modern church, and the _Victoria Tower_, by the cemetery, on the new ground, being the most prominent public objects. The old church on the quay, dating about 1120, is crucial, the interior being darkened by its massive columns and heavy galleries.

The marble slabs of the fish-market are profusely supplied with choice fish—turbot, dorey, and very fine crustacea; and the stalls teem in the season with the treasures of Pomona.

The education at the College is economical, about £12 per annum; the cost for living with the Principal not exceeding £60.

The influence of this facility of learning will enlighten the minds even of the unlettered islanders, among whom there is a prevalent superstition. The belief in witchcraft may still be discerned, although it is now two centuries since women were tortured, hung, and burned under this demoniac creed.

The scenic quality both of the interior and of the eastern and northern coasts of Guernsey is mere prettiness. On the south, however, from Fermains Bay to Rocquaine it is buttressed by some of the most magnificent rocks in the Channel, the land gradually descending from them northward. The coast rocks on the east, south-east, south, and south-west, from Saline to Rocquaine, are of _gneiss_, those of Rocquaine are of _schist_, and thence they are _granitic_.

A line from Vagon Bay on the west through Catel to Amherst cuts the islet into two unequal parts, differing in geological character. Much of the bed of the northern portion is alluvial; some, indeed, embanked from the sea by General Doyle. The southern is a more elevated platform, and consists of a series of undulating hills, and sloping bosky lanes, and little glens with rippling runnels, until the highest downs dip at once into the waves their magnificent gneiss cliffs, rounding into beautiful bays, embossed with outlying rocks, and worn into clefts and fissures, or running up into exquisite little dingles. This magnificence is confined to the south; the sea and coast views, however, to the east, are finely backed by the islets of Herm and Jedthou, and the more distant ridge of Serque.

Guernsey is an easy study; it may be _coasted_ and _threaded_, and its objects of natural and archæological interest analysed, in four or five days. In calm weather, however, the cliff beauty of the islet may be contemplated more perfectly from a boat, surveyed from Fermains Bay to Les Hanois.

The coast from Port St. Pierre to St. Sampson is flat, and studded with rocklets, on which loads of _vraich_ and _laminaria_ and _asperococcus_ are profusely strewn. These algæ are gathered and dried for fuel, at the legal harvest time, in March and July, the harvest home being profusely supplied with _vraich cakes_ and bread. The digging and blasting of the quarries of black stone, and the tiny windmills that drain these excavations, give life to the scene as we approach St. Sampson’s.

Martello towers crown several of the brows, and there is within very old walls to the left a little remnant now styled _Ivy Castle_. It is not worth the visit, although it is a bit of a castle, built by Robert of Normandy, contemporary with that of Jerbourg.

We are close to the archæological gems of the islet,—the churches of _St. Sampson_ and _Braye la Ville_, or _du Val_, within a mile of each other, at each end of a flat alluvial isthmus. The first is dated 1111, its name being derived from Sampson, Bishop of St. David’s, consecrated Bishop of Dol under the Duke of Brittany, and endowed with these islets by Childebert of France. He came to Guernsey, and built a chapel here. There are three aisles, with massive pillars and Norman arches; the old gallery-loft and the tower are in exquisite antique. It is profusely covered by most luxuriant ivy with enormous stems.

The steeple of Braye du Val, dated 1117, is very eccentric, immense granitic blocks lying before the belfry-door.

At low water we cross the harbour of St. Sampson’s, Vale, or Du Val, on stepping-stones. The Castle on the mound was erected as a defence against the incursion of the Danes, and then called St. Michael’s, or the Castle of the Archangel. There is a legend imputing its erection chiefly to a band of military monks, who, in a sort of holy pilgrimage, made a descent on the islet.

A Druidical _carn_ lies on the hill, half a mile northward on the left of the road. There are twelve upright and three immense horizontal stones. The largest of these, fifteen feet long and a yard thick, rests on four uprights, the second only on two, the third on the second and the edge of the pit, so that six uprights are unoccupied. From this brow there is a perspective view of the chief objects in the islet, Alderney lying on the horizon to the north-east.

Forts _Doyle_ and _Pembroke_ are on the northern point on either side of _Lancresse Bay_, the bay of “_Anchorage_,” in which the Duke of Normandy landed in a storm, as he was sailing over to England to Edward the Confessor.

The shores and bays are here flat and dull; as we leave the Race Course and pass _Portinger_ and _Long Port_, the upheaved blocks of gneiss increase in number and proportion. In _Cobo_ Bay stands _Le Grande Roche_; its veins of rose-coloured feldspar are unique. Here and there we have picturesque glimpses—one of the flat islet of _Lihou_, once hallowed by a priory built in the reign of Henry I., the grouping of cots and walls still in bold relief. The outlying rocklets are profuse between _Le Grand Havre_ on the north and the bold blocks of _Les Hanois_ or _Hanoreaux_ off _Pleinmont Point_, the west corner of the islet; they completely stud the bays of _Port du Fer_, _Saline_, _Long Point_, _Great Cobo_, _Vazon_, _Perelle_, _Le Rie_, _Rocquaine_, the widest bay in Guernsey. It was in Vazon Bay that the Spaniard Yvon de Galles descended and fought the battle in which the islander Jean de Lesoc performed feats of great valour. The site of this conflict is still named La Bataille.

In contrast to this record of history is a fairy legend. In this bay of Vazon was “_Les Creux des Fées_,” a cavern haunted by the little people. Why and when and how we know not, but they conquered Guernsey!

A sterile sameness reigns around Pleinmont Point and Mount _Herault_ and _Creux Marie_, a cavern 200 feet deep, and _Le Corbière_, until we reach _Point la Maye_. In the vicinity are the old village churches of _St. Peter_ in the Wood, of the æra of Henry II., 1167, and _Torteval_, still more ancient, of the æra of Henry I., 1130, which was erected by Philip de Carteret and dedicated to his Saint, Philip, after a vow during a storm in Rocquaine Bay. There is the menhir stone in a meadow by one of the lanes.

The highest peak of the islet is the perpendicular cliff eastward of Maye Point, rising to 300 feet—with offset rocklets and caverns or slits in perfection. After the steep descent to the north-east into the little cove of _Petit-bôt_, we mount abruptly to a very fine brow, _Mount Hubert_, the name associated with the chase, and as we are now in the district of _Le Forêt_, we may believe that we are on the site of sylvan sport in the olden time. The dingle over which we look to the elevated church of _Le Forêt_, on the opposite brow, reminds us of the ravines of Devon or Man, the road winding in zigzag down a very deep valley with a rippling streamlet at its side. We are now on the brow over Icart Bay, the wildness and breadth of its waters spread out far below us. The sienite rocks are finely chaotic, exactly grouped for the pencil, and among the best studies in the islets; and around us we may discover very luxuriant patches of lichen—among them the _Roccella Tinctoria_, or _Orchel_, to which we owe many a bright olive dye and the litmus paper so essential as a test. Another descent to eastward brings us to the most exquisite little cove, _Saint’s Bay_; the huts and nets and grouping of fishermen are on a ledge of the rock, adding life to the otherwise solitary scene. The martello tower that was to guard the descent of the gorge, like a Border peel in Scotland, is properly perched to carry off the cliffs. Crossing Bon Point, the most fantastic outlying rocks of Muel Huet at once arrest the eye; disintegration has left them at present almost as caricatures. Leaving St. Martin’s on our left, the high brow of _Jerbourg_ rises eastward, on which there is a lofty column to the memory of General Doyle. It is the finest point for a panorama of the isles; Herm and Jedthou beneath us, Serque and Jersey extending their long grey ridges in the distance. The lines at _Fort George_ commanding the road and the port are dismantled; from the eastern bastion we gain a very fine bold view of the harbour and Castle Cornet, with the eastern coast to the Castle of du Val, Alderney, lying on the horizon. And so we accomplish the coast route of Guernsey.

It is early evening in summer: wandering in the interior of this floral islet, we are directly surrounded by pretty quiet hamlets and homesteads: the abrupt lanes are lined and feathered by underwood of very luxuriant yet dwarfish growth. The little gardens are glowing with flowers, and they, as if to shame the forest by a contrast, attain a gigantic height, their colours being exquisitely deepened into perfect beauty. The tree _verbena_ rises twenty feet; _camellia_, _oleander_, _myrtle_, _aloe_, _cystus_, blue _hydrangea_, _fuchsia_, _geranium_, _magnolia_, all blooming profusely in the open air; _amaryllis_, the Guernsey lily, being here unparalleled. The _heliotrope_ overruns its bed in the wildest luxuriance—a carpet of the richest dyes more beautiful by far than the cloth of gold of Hindustan, and on which Flora might well hold her Court of Blossoms—and the _canna indica_ is now a denizen in the islet. And here on the brow is the village of _Catel_, looking down and across the flats to Braye. The antique church of the twelfth century, frowning in dark stone, adds subject of high interest to the bright landscape around us. And look at that eccentric daub within it—three knights on horseback with falcons, and three skeletons lying on the ground. It is somewhat tempting to hatch a legend, but we refrain in pity, especially as the ovum is _addle_. There are, however, real records of the ceremonial magnificence with which these islet churches were consecrated, that are truly entitled to a remembrance. Bishops and abbots and feudal lords, with their trains of vassals and servitors, were wont in days of old to take, we hope, a holy pride in assembling to grace the consecration with their state. Still more fanciful is the romance of the Well of St. George, near Catel, which is fraught with a very potent charm. St. George beats St. Valentine hollow; for a maiden has merely to make a votive offering to this Saint at his well nine days in succession, and lo! if she looks then into the well, she not only sees her lover, but may _claim_ him as her right. So he becomes a Benedict will he nill he.

From the slopes as we walk are the home peeps down the lanes and across the dingles, with the church of du Val, and a windmill, and an arch, and the martello of Crevelt, composing pictures of quiet beauty; and amid such fair scenes we wander along to _St. Peter_ in the Wood, and _St. Sauveurs_ (near which is the Beacon Hill, _La Hogue foque_,) and _St. Andrew_, all consecrated by ancient fanes that claim the era of Henry II.

And there in the hall of an old manor house—for we are bold in our peregrination, and assume all the invasive liberty, the freemasonry of curiosity—there, in the hall, we look on a large couch covered with dry grass, fern, and heather; and what doth it import? It is the _Lit de Veille_. On this bed, during the dreary evenings of winter, assemble the maidens and youths of the isles, and there they sit and huddle or recline often beneath festoons of autumnal or dried flowers, and beguile the hours with song and chat, and thrifty needle too, forming a group worthy of the pen of Boccaccio or the pencil of Watteau.

HERM AND JEDTHOU

Are lying along in a lake of molten gold, for so smiles the Channel in a calm evening of July. We are rowed across with sketch-book and wallet and hammer.

Jedthou—_Grande Hogue_—as it was a famous beacon-hill or watch-tower, is not more than a mile long, offering fair rock subjects for the pencil, with its satellite blocks, _Fauconnière_, _Goubinier_, and _Crevisou_, for every block has a name.

Herm is two miles in length, and is deeply quarried. Rabbits are burrowing among its rocks, and very small crustacea lie profusely around its shore. But there to the north is spread its carpet of sand and its shell beach, on which we may chance to gather very choice specimens: for instance, chiton, lepas, pholas, solen, tellen, chama, cypræa, voluta, haliotis, murex, and sponge and coral. It is a treasury of wrecked shells; probably among the granite there is a lack of lime for the construction of shell, so as to yield a profusion of living shell-fish.

On such a night, and the currents calm, we may row across the Channel by moonlight to Port St. Pierre, as safely as we may float in a gondola across a lagune in Venice. The moon has lighted on our slumber, and at the earliest sunbeam we start from our couch, and we are looking on a long amethystine ridge just coming out of the morning haze, and thither are we bound.

SARK:

SERK—SERQUE—GERS—L’ISLE DU CERS—SARNICA.

THIS exquisite little islet is lying before us, eight miles off; yet we may often gaze on it with longing eyes, even from the pier in Guernsey, with boats of all kinds, even the _Lady_ (cutter) _of Sark_ floating around us, without a hope of landing on its guarded rock.

Now this little Serque was the cell of St. Magloire, an Armorican or Brittany bishop, and here he prayed and fasted himself into fitness for the conversion of the Channel islets. This cell, in the reign of Edward III., was still a ruined relic, and the islet was then a nest of corsairs: it still assumes a sort of wild or neutral aspect. In the reign of Edward VI. or that of Mary, the Flemings took it by stratagem, but in 1565 it was securely colonized by Hilary or Helier de Carteret, Lord of St. Ouen’s, under a grant from Mary and from Elizabeth of _fief en Hubert_, a guerdon for knight’s service. There are monumental stones indicating its association with the Britons, and the Romans we believe were not ignorant of Serque. The _plan_ of this little gem is highly eccentric: a table-land, four miles long, two miles its greatest breadth, and five feet! at the narrowest, spread on a majestic pile of rocks deeply indented with bays and coves and clefts, and fringed by groups of rocklets and ledges, in all the fantastic fashioning of the elements. These outposts, by increasing the difficulty of access, impart a deeper interest to the islet, scarcely alloyed by the slight sense of peril, for we are confident of being safely wafted, D. V., by the superior skill of the Serque boatmen, even among breakers and conflicting currents, into the tiny cove of _Le Creux_. So our _Lady of Sark_ is safe at her moorings, and we are rowed into this puddle of a harbour, completely overhung by perpendicular cliffs, 200 feet high, and richly clothed with velvet mosses and lichens, a complete study for Salvator or our own Pyne. This is the only point for landing in certain states of current or surf, although in very calm weather there is an available cove to eastward, and the daring may be run ashore in the bays. But even from this beach we have no natural mode of escape. A tunnel in the cliff opens by an arch, over which is the date 1688, the year of its construction by the Carterets; and so we walk out and up between green hills chequered with heath and rock, with triumphant pride at thus carrying the mighty earthworks which the Gnome and the Triton have raised around their granite home. And so we seek our hostelry, and find it in a capital farm-house, and we are soon engaged with Madame Vaudin in a cosy chat, in which come out, so unexpectedly, records of our lamented friend, Sir John Franklin, who years ago sojourned in our very chamber, and slumbered within those green curtains; and all this while the fish and the ducks and the puddings, bathed in exquisite cream, are being prepared for our luxurious and most economic feasting. And then, in the kitchen, we discuss the statistics, the poetry, and the government of the islet with this ancient, clever dame. Of this it is enough to record, that there are about forty yeomen, tillers of the land, in Serque, the magistracy of the isle, quite a Venetian Senate; one of whom, we believe, may try a cause, subject, however, to an appeal to the forty, and to the Seigneur or Lord of Serque, who is of course their president. They are their own law-makers, not subject to the enactments of our legislature, exchequer, or customs; the only duty paid to England being a sort of quit-rent of £2 per annum.

Our hostelry is in the pretty village of _Dixcard_, a few scattered houses forming the ville of _Le Vorsque_, the chief rendezvous of the Serque islet, nearly in its centre. The dingle runs nearly across the islet, winding for about a mile between lofty brows down to its bay, and may form a line for our promenading—the northern and the southern walk. The beauties of the coast of Serque, however, should be revelled in; they are worth more than a glance and away, and after a rapid survey of two days, we may wander away in any direction from our central roost, and be sure of descending in a score of minutes to some beauty of the rocks, some cove or block or boutique, the names of which, though sadly mutilated by the islanders, we will essay to record.

Our first walk is by the church and the scattered ville of Roselle and the Seigneury to the northern cape. This house of the lord is in the Tudor style, and boasts a lake, a boat, a bowling-green, a flagstaff, and a belvidere, and parterres and greenhouses of choice and beautiful flowers; and it is near the head of a ravine leading down to the most exquisite cave of the islet.

And here we are on the promontory of _Point le Nez_, the first cape on our scud from Guernsey. The terminal rocks are insular at high water, but _Le Bec du Nez_ may be reached on a ledge at ebb of tide. On the brow the schist blocks, traversed by porphyry, are upheaved in the wildest confusion, and assume an endless variety of form, more so than the shore blocks, which are washed and rolled and rounded by the waves. It is a fine wild range to begin with. The turf down invites us even to an Olympic race, for the pure air elevates both the will and the power of our frame. We feel our muscular energy almost grow upon us, and when we have revelled on the turf, then down among the white, smooth rocks that lie scattered around in chaotic rudeness, like the thrones of Titanic nobles. But prolific nature has gemmed these blocks for a more charming study than mythological fancies; there is a garden of lichens strewn for our special admiration on their surface; there are the golden studs of _squammaria_, and the grey and purple bosses of _parmelia_; and if we peep between these stone giants, we shall light on many a lovely flower and rich green plant, blooming and luxuriating within little nooks, and nursed by their genial shelter. The _scolopendrium_ and _hart’s tongue_ are long and broad in leaf, and the _grammitis_ expands its fronds in profusion; and here we breasted one of the most violent gales of the Channel, not without some peril, for it was often difficult to _hang on_; but the wind _blew into us_ such a joyous and refreshing energy and power that this clinging to the rocks was no labour. Our sketch-book was not so fortunate, it was whirled from our grasp in a moment, and dashed against a towering block. We rushed wildly to save our treasure, but four or five of our favourite sketches were wafted in a few seconds high up among the clouds, imparting a deeper value to the _salvage_.

Ascending the ledge to the eastern side of the _Corbie du Nez_ or _Grin_, we come abruptly on a yawning cleft that nearly isolates the cape itself. Its aspect is formidable but its descent is easy, and it leads down to the mouth or funnel of the largest cave in the islet, _La Boutique, par excellence_. To reach an inner cave a barrier must be mounted. At high water, the billows, after dashing on the shore cliff, rush in with a thundering sound at two chasms on the north and west. At low water the inner boutique may be entered with a light; it is lofty, and on its surface there are a few stalactitic droppings and a sprinkling of ferns. There are smaller caverns in the cliffs. We come out on the broad bay of Banquette, and in the little cave to southward stand out in the most fantastic beauty the finest outlying rocks in the islet, _Les Autelets_—little altars: in complete contrast, however, one being a stupendous cube of _Grauwacke_ on a very narrow base, the other a huge pyramid, on the ledges of which a flight of choughs and shags settle and roost in the evening. The overhanging cliffs are nearly perpendicular, and along their base lie around in heaps the most gigantic blocks of very variegated stones, black, red and grey; and unlike the _angular_ blocks on the hills they are mathematically rounded off by the attrition of the waves. Among these rocks are deep pools of water, in which we may discover small crustacea, and rich varieties of the _daisy actinia_, the _nereis_, and _holothuria_, and other _anthozoa_. There is one flaunting in bright orange, and yonder crawls the _hermit crab_ that seems to have _perforated_ an actinia within a shell, the tissue of the anemone forming a ring round the crab. Many of the blocks are richly clothed with _fucus spiralis_ (_bladdervraich_) and _crithmum_ (_samphire_) in all their splendour of gold and bronze. We must be wary, however, in paddling over these slippery carpets, a fall from them is not a trifle. _Chondrus membranifolius_, and pink and green _polysyphonia_ and _dasya_ are hanging on the cliffs, and the _ulva_ and _porphyra_, oyster-green, and purple _laver_ on the deeper rocks. The blocks are studded with minute univalves, and the _patella_ shells of the limpet show like bosses on a shield.

Through a splendid arch of dark reddish sienite, marked by horizontal lines of schist, standing nobly out from the cliff, we pass into the next bay, the most magnificent in Serque, _Porte Meullin_. It is a deep wide cave, overfrowned by cliffs of clay shale 300 feet high, that come down perpendicularly on the beach. On their sides and brow _zigzags_ are cut, by which the summit is gained, and from it we look down on the most splendid grouping of the islet. A cleft on the south side of Port Meullin sets off an isolated rock of very quaint form, and leads to another fine cave with chaotic blocks and pools, a lofty pinnacle towering above the cleft, and a wide cavern yawning in the islet rock. These rocks are bronzed by masses of golden gelatine, _laminaria bulbosa_, and _fucus canaliculatus_.

Among these ferruginous blocks, _talc_ and _asbestos_ and _agate chalcedony_, green, red, and yellow _jasper_ may be discovered, and veins of _lapis ollaris_ running across the islet.

During the western gales—and we now encountered one of the most determined violence—the waves roll into Port Meullin a profusion of the most magnificent algæ or weeds that we have beheld. In a few minutes we selected and displayed on the pebbles half a score of splendid specimens, a complete museum of sea treasure. There was a gigantic flag, six yards long, of rich sienna brown with a fringe of pink, covered with white spots, _laminaria saccharina_, or _sea hanger_. There were the fleshy fans of _nitrophyllum_; long brown ribbon slips six or eight in a bunch, _asperococcus_ and _rhodomenia_; bunches of golden pods or bladders at the end of narrow leaves, _fucus spiralis_; huge bunches of broad reddish leaves, like those of the oak, _delesseria sanguinea_; eight or ten ribbon thongs, six feet long, on a thick brown stem, _laminaria digitata_ (they might be a cat-o’-nine-tails for the backs of the Nereids); filigree weeds of the purest pink and white, _polysyphonia_ and _dasya_; very long, tough, gelatinous brown thongs in a bow, _chorda filum_, sea whip-lash, and the purple _iridea_. The heath brows over this lane are clothed in corresponding luxuriance. There were at least three species of _erica_, a profusion of _spurges_, _aspidia_, and _asplenia_ ferns; _ophioglossum_, adder’s-tongue, and an _adiantum_, maiden-hair fern, and dwarf _polypodium_ were springing from the stunted stems, and little tufts, like _codium bursæ_, green purse-moss, and all these among clumps of _thrift_ and _chicory_, and dwarf thistles, and wild _sage_ and _spinach_, and _vaccinia_. We could not light on the _stramonium_, _wormwood_, or _canna indica_, which we were told now grew wild in the islet.

_Couleur de rose_ will ever gild our memory of Port Meullin. It was the scene of our first grand impression of the extreme beauty of Serque; but it was gilded by a sentiment somewhat beyond mere admiration. From another point, a very courteous gentleman left his islet villa, and his lady and his luncheon, and guided us to the descent, where a bevy of fair girls, in all the romance of elegant deshabille, were gathering weed and pebbles among the rocks. Charming! Look across from Port Meullin to Havre Gosselin; there is a green fissure in the cliff 200 feet in height, as if the rocks had quarrelled and fallen away from each other—it is the _Moie du Mouton_, and along it sheep are lifted to browse on the green down above.

And there on the right stretches the bold isolated rock, _Brechou_, or L’Isle de Merchant, a table of rich mould on a belt of flat rock. On its southern side yawns a very lofty chasm. We longed to pore into it; but the currents daunted even the boatmen of Serque. Round the point of Lionee opens the wide bay of Le Grand Grève, divided from the opposite bay by that most eccentric wall of rock 200 feet high and 6 feet thick on its ridge. This _coupée_, thus pared down for safety and for traffic, is chiefly of sienite or hornblende granite, traversed by a vein of porcelain clay, and it divides the islet into Great and Little Serk. This, perhaps prudent cutting down, has, however, shorn the guide-books of the high-flown epithets of “awe” and “terror,” which they affirm must strike the adventurer from Great to Little Serk. This peninsula, _presq’île du petit Serque_—wears a dreary aspect on its face; yet parterres of the most splendid ericas here and there adorn its soil—a little nest of cots and some scattered ruins of miners’ huts display a curious contrast of vitality and desertion. The southern point is the mining district; and though they have quite abandoned the search for ore, the superficial barrenness is perfectly consistent with mineral impregnation below. Our research for mollusca was more fertile in the pools about the southern point than elsewhere. As we round the point we come on a little bay, the avant courier of a splendid succession of coves and clefts on the eastern coast, and lying off this southern point peers up the bold rock _L’Etat du Serq_. Every brow on this deeply indented shore should be rounded and scaled and descended, as far as the worn or stony path can be traced, and then we look directly on the face of the cliff and _into_ the caverns. There is one cave especially, called, we believe, _Le Pot_, as fine as can be imagined—the boldest feature of Little Serk, and on these rock-brows the lichens are in beautiful profusion, and the grey and yellow cetraria, and the fleshy _sycophorus deformis_.

We now come round to the eastern cliff of Coupée Bay, its extraordinary wall lifting up its causeway almost in the clouds. Beyond, the next headland opens on us the fine bay of _Baleine_, or _Dixcard_, the holiday spot of the islet. It is carpeted by white sand, on which small boats may be pushed in calm weather; it is the bathing-place of the visitors, whose half-mile walk from the hotel is chiefly on the greensward, and there is an arched cave in a pinnacle for our disrobing. Every step on this bold shore displays a fresh picture.

_Le Creux_ cavern, a great hole 100 feet deep, and opening above on the hill, yawns on the beach. At high-water a boat can be pushed into this cauldron, which is a perfect miniature of the famed Buller of Buchan in Scotland. _Point Vignette_, _La Terrible_, or _La Conchée_, lifts its proud pinnacles beyond this. _Les Burons_ and _La Moie_ lie off the cliffs. Then comes a black ridge, looking like porphyry, termed, we believe, _La Chateau_. It bounds the only little cave, L’Eperquerie—Paregorois—Port Gourey, in which boats may be sheltered and moored. Into this caverned cave of green velvet it was our fortune to descend during one of the severest gales, the rolling foam beautifully contrasting with the black-green rocks. The small boats were dancing high on the liquid mountain, and even the cutters and a lugger were rocking and dipping their bows in the water, and yet at the time the water in this cave, and in _Creux_ also, was the calmest around the islet. The group of fishermen below us on a rock-ledge were seemingly in dilemma for ourselves. It was a most perilous footing; so boisterous was the blast around the rocks, that we were compelled to cling to the rocks, and several of our hapless sketches were wafted aloft in a moment. The sailors seemed to think us wild, and to wonder how and whence we came, and, indeed, why we came at all; and yet this was what we hoped to see—a calm would have tamed the scene down to insignificance. Close to the landing-place and the off-lying rock it is all perfect studies. We have _La Chapel de Meuve_, a square block of pendant granite, as if momentarily about to fall. The range of rocks on the eastern coast consist chiefly of sienite. We have now well-nigh rounded the islet of Serk, a complete _embarras de richesse_; one glimpse of these rocks taken at random were worth a day’s journey.

Hark! amid the howling of the wind there is the scrape of a fiddle—shade of Straduarius, a cremona in Serk! A band of wandering minstrels are wind-bound in the islet, and in sympathy they are about to invoke Terpsichore in a stable-loft, approached by a narrow mud path, beneath a dripping hedge and a muck-heap! And there is the fair, the fairest maid in Serk, Fanny, of whom it is the fashion to talk, flirting in very accomplished style, raising flames of jealousy among the juveniles who resort to Mrs. Hizzlehurst’s hotel. It was a very fair bit of romantic burlesque, and _took_.

We are in Serk four days more than we had contemplated; the pressure of harvest binds us in the islet; all hands to the sickle and the sheaf. Boreas, however, had the credit of our imprisonment; yet we regret it not—almost every waking hour was passed in contemplation of some fresh beauty. The bracing breeze of health, the complete retirement—_solitude_, if you will—the absence of all mere holiday intrusion, the instant transition from our hostelry into the midst of romantic beauty, to be admired or studied as the fit may work, and, withal, the order of domestic economy, all mark this little islet as the perfect home of the student who is reading or writing—of the romantic wanderer—of the artist—of the geologist—of all, indeed, who love to revel in wild and unspoliated nature.

Adieu! beautiful Sark, we shall not soon forget your perfection; adieu! for yonder lies the “Lady” of the islet, in whose bosom we are to be wafted off to Guernsey with the market-people who wend to St. Peter’s Port to replenish the exhausted stores of the islet. Romance itself must be fed, it cannot live on flowers: and so, at five in the morning, in bright moonlight, amid a bevy of visitors and a group of Serquois peasants, we have passed the portal of the rocks, and wait on the beach to be rowed to the cutter in the cove—wind, tide, and currents dead against us; so, to gain an offing, we make the tour of the island, and by a long tack of three miles run up the Great Russell and round Castle Cornet into the haven of Sarnia.

And now, still further southward, we are nearing the fairest islet of the Channel, and after the circuitous struggles of our voyage from Serque, with all the charm of contrast, we overcome time and space with almost a certainty of progression. We chuckle at this triumph of vapour over the gales, yet with time to spare, and with wind and tide and current in our favour—a very rare coincidence in the Channel seas—we would yet prefer to hoist our canvas, and skim leisurely over the glittering waves to Jersey.

JERSEY:

CÆSAREA—AUGIA—JARSARY—JERESEYE—GERSEY—GERSUI—GEARSEY—=la
deroute=—DEARSI (_Gaelic_)

WE have rounded the south-western point of the islet, and are floating into the wide bright bay of St. Aubin’s, steering by the western passage through the narrows between the bold fortress of Elizabeth Castle and the pier, and we wend at once to our hostelry at St. Helier’s.

This Jersey is an oblong islet, about twelve miles from east to west, by about seven or eight from north to south, extending from the Points of Sorell and of Noirmont, and those of Belle Hogue and Du Pas. It is completely escalloped by bays and coves and ravines, with their essential rocks and promontories, and _belted_ with myriads of outlying rocklets of very eccentric forms, composed chiefly of sienite and porphyry. The five Points on the south coast—Corbière, Moye, Noirmont, Le Nez, and La Roque, being nearly in the same latitude. To these natural bulwarks the art of defence has added a circle of martello towers around the coast, and these are now so completely dismantled as even to embellish and add interest to the landscape; for they seem to tell of deeds and people of a feudal age, like the Border peels of the north. The three great bays of St. Ouen, St. Aubin, and Grouville, form the flat shores of the islet.

The area of the islet is about 40,000 acres; its population about 37,000. It is divided into twelve parishes—St. Helier’s, St. Lawrence, St. Peter’s, St. Brelade, St. Ouen, St. John, St. Mary, Trinity, St. Martin, St. Saviour, St. Clement, Grouville—and subdivided into about forty vintaines, an area containing twenty houses.

From each of these churches, which were held sacred as a sanctuary, there was in ancient times a direct road—_Perquages_—to the coast, by which the criminal might escape unscathed if he kept the direct line.

And these are the chief officers of the islet:—The military lieutenant-governor, the baillie, and the dean, appointed by the sovereign; the advocate, selected by the baillie, and the twelve judges, by the people.

As we step on the quay of St. Helier’s, or “_town_,” we look on quaint grey houses assuming a Norman aspect; but as we proceed to the interior we are reminded of an English market-town, with neat shops and new wine-houses. There are about 1000 houses in the town; its population being about 30,000.

In the royal square is the court-house, _La Cohue_, of the date of 1647, around which we meet loungers and gossips, especially during the sittings, and in the centre is a royal statue.

The public library was erected by Falle, the historian of Jersey, and contains a very fair batch of literature, and also the drawings of Capelin, a native artist.

There is a new prison, and a hospital, and a poorhouse.

St. Helier’s is prolific of temples of worship. Amidst French Protestant and Catholic fanes and conventicles, stands pre-eminent in the royal square the mother Church, 500 years old, and of pure Norman style,—a new aisle, in perfect harmony, being lately added. Very grotesque gargouilles and a profusion of ivy mark it as a very eccentric pile. The government stall and pulpit are ancient, and there are monuments and slabs to the memory of Carterets in 1767—Durel, Dauvergues, Gordon, and Pierson, the defender. The gallery stairs are outside the walls. The evening is devoted to the French service.

The several market-places, especially on Saturdays, are scenes of very lively interest. The produce of the Jersey gardens is most prolific, and sold at a moderate price. The grapes are pre-eminent, and the Chaumontelle pear has nearly attained the weight of one pound, and is often sold at five guineas per hundred. In the afternoon the market is a sort of fashion; but the grouping of the buyers and the loungers is not picturesque, the costume being chiefly the formal cut of England, or the sombre colours of Normandy. The colloquial language is a mingling of French and English: the children are taught both, but, whether in truth or in courtesy, several assured us that they preferred the English.